Education Commons^™

“It’S Like They Don’T Recognize What I Bring To The Classroom”: African Immigrant Youths’ Multilingual And Multicultural Navigation In United States Schools, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, Alex Kumi-Yeboah, Anthony Mawuli Sallar

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Discourses of African immigrant children are rare in educational research. As such, African immigrant educational experiences are often obscured (in part, owing to the model minority myth about Africans based on higher education degrees received by African immigrants), as well as the actual experiences and realities for African immigrant K-12 students. This qualitative study examines cross-cultural educational experiences of 30 Black African immigrant youth in U.S. schools. The findings reveal multiple participants’ struggles with cultural and linguistic differences, stereotypes and marginalization in the school environment, low expectations from teachers, and adjusting to new schooling practices. The African youths’ voices exhibited …

Language And Identity: Multilingual Immigrant Learners In South Africa, Saloshna Vandeyar, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Increased multilingualism and mobility have witnessed an increased focus on multilingual immigrant learners. This study aims to help educators understand experiences of immigrant students in South Africa that relate to language and identity by comparing such experiences across three different school settings: an urban school with a high (Black) immigrant and indigenous population, a former Indian school, and a former White school. Drawing on semi-structured interviews from a larger case study, this study makes visible the immigrant learner experience in multilingual settings in which xenophobic conditions arise. The findings reveal similarities as well as differences in individual identity construction and …

The Downfall: Listening To Non-Urban Communities And Their Language Ideologies, Jessica Sierk, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Increased mobility due to globalization and other geopolitical shifts has changed school demographics worldwide. In the Midwest, much of this new immigrant population is Spanishspeaking and in need of language support. Consequently, schools play an important role in responding to the New Latino Diaspora. In this paper, we describe how unconscious language ideologies inhibited social change that could improve conditions for new student populations in two non-urban high schools in Nebraska (Stockbridge and Springvale, pseudonyms). This critical discourse analysis draws on ethnographic data from a larger study, including participant observations and semi-structured interviews. Findings reveal language ideologies that use language …

The Visual Representation Of Dual Language Education, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Despite well documented benefits of dual language (DL) programs which deliver educational content in two languages, there are still few DL programs in the United States. As such, there is a need to understand how to effectively persuade more states/districts to adopt the programs. In addition, more critical research is needed that focuses on how the programs are represented visually, as well as how this visual representation reflects wider discourses about DL education that could impede the programs from reaching those who need them most. In this article, the author explores ideologies behind DL program discourse by looking at photojournalism …

Identity Negotiation In Multilingual Contexts: A Narrative Inquiry Into Experiences Of An African Immigrant High School Student, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, James Oloo

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Background/Context: Inclusion of African immigrant youth voices in educational and research discourses remains rare despite the steady growth of this population in the United States over the past four decades. Consequently, the multilingual abilities of these youth remain typically unnoticed or ignored in the classroom, and little is specifically known about their histories, cultures, expectations, and achievements.

Purpose: Using the narrative inquiry approach and the Natural, Institutional, Discursive, Affinity, Learner, and Solidarity (NIDALS) theoretical lens, we explore the lived experiences of one African immigrant high school student in the midwestern United States.

Research Design: Using narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, …

Book Review: Neha Vora, Teach For Arabia: American Universities, Liberalism, And Transnational Qatar, Loukia K. Sarroub

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

With a provocative title that inherently questions who might be served and educated best by the branch campuses of top US universities in Qatar and Gulf states, Vora’s new book debunks some old myths and reminds readers from the outset that “liberalism has Arabian roots” (18). Vora wonders about and studies the transplant of liberal education into “so-called illiberal” countries like Qatar and other Gulf States. Her timely book offers on-the-ground perspectives of students and faculty in these transplant institutions as they engage with curriculum and one another in a new knowledge economy. The book contributes to scholarship about how …